


fool's mate

by postfixrevolution



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Friends, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, just a cute little childhood friends thing, mentions of glenn, plus me peddling my chess playing sylvain agenda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: Felix is seven years old when Sylvain teaches him how to play chess.





	fool's mate

**Author's Note:**

> the wiki page has an [animated play by play of a fool's mate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate) in practice; i know it's virtually impossible for it to happen, but indulge me and these silly kids for a moment haha
> 
> unbeta-ed, so forgive any mistakes! ^^

Felix is seven years old when Sylvain teaches him how to play chess. 

Sylvain has been playing for a few years already, growing rapidly in his skill with the oddly shaped black and white pieces. Felix watches the older boy face off against Glenn in earnest, copper eyes alight as Sylvain grins with a brightness that puts the sun itself to shame, plucking piece after piece of Glenn's carved warriors off the board. When Sylvain sets up another board, centering each of the pieces within their domains with a practiced perfection, Glenn is nowhere to be seen. If Felix recalls correctly, his brother had been sent away to Galatea territory to meet with the lords there. It won't particularly matter why until he returns, bright eyed and with another story to regale his younger brother and Sylvain with, so Felix doesn't pay his absence another thought. 

He stands to the side of the chess table, gaze flickering between the strange pieces and Sylvain. Sylvain's personal set is different from Glenn's. His older brother has a chess set befitting a future advisor to the king, black and white pieces lovingly carved from rich marble. When he and Sylvain play, Felix can hear the clack of heavy marble from rooms away, sharp and unmistakable. It's far from his favorite sound, but there's an undeniable magnetism to it, one that's just barely tinted the same shade as hazel eyes. The set sprawled out before him now is carved from wood, the traditionally black and white pieces replaced with rosewood and golden maple and far more pleasant to listen to as Sylvain drops and shuffles the pieces immaculately into place. 

"Glenn's not here, you know," Felix reminds him, watching as Sylvain reaches across the board to adjust the orientation of one of his centermost pieces, the one bearing a delicately carved cross atop its pinnacle. The polished maple is aged, gently yellowed from years' worth of exposure to sunlight. Once he is satisfied with the position, Sylvain turns toward him, a wide grin plastered across his features. In the warm sunlight that cascades through the drawing room windows, his tan skin glows bright and golden, almost the same shade as the wooden chess pieces that sit opposite him. 

"I know," he chirps pleasantly. "That can't stop me from having a little fun."

"Chess needs two players," Felix frowns, hands on his hips as he eyes the board warily. Sylvain, as always, doesn't let that fact deter him. When he smiles like this, eyes crinkled at the corners and crooked baby teeth so proudly on display, Felix imagines that he could outlast and outshine the sun itself.

"Yeah, you and me, of course!" 

He always makes things sound so simple.

"I don't know how to play, Sylvain." He feels the slightest bit guilty, having to rain so hopelessly on his friend's parade, but Felix stares at the board and doesn't recognize a single piece. "Glenn didn't get lessons until he was as old as you, so they didn't teach me yet," he adds on smally, unable to meet the older boy's eye. 

Sylvain only laughs, so jarring a sound that it brings Felix's gaze immediately back upward. 

"That's why _ I'm _ gonna teach you, duh," he snorts, pointing at the chair across from him. "Sit down and let your best friend show you how it's done!"

Felix is apprehensive at first, the sheer number of unfamiliar pieces already making his head start to spin, but Sylvain's grin is far too expectant, too bright-eyed and eager. He would be lying if he said that smile hasn't always managed to ease every single one of his past worries away. As soon as he sits down, Sylvain shoots him a mischievous look, mouthing a quick _ watch this _ as he thrusts out an arm and sweeps the entire board clean. They clatter hollowly onto the table, and Felix is absolutely dumbstruck. 

"That's not how you _ play_, is it?" he asks, copper eyes wide. 

"First, I'm gonna teach you how to set up the board," Sylvain explains, "And you're gonna help me, Felix."

"But—"

"No buts."

"I already told you I don't know how to play, stupid," Felix pouts, glaring petulantly at the checkered board between them. 

"Not yet, you don't!" A hand creeps into Felix's field of vision, spindly fingers reaching over to flutter over the pile of figurines. "Go ahead and pick one of the pieces, and I'll tell you all about it."

Felix eyes the unceremoniously dumped pile of wooden chess pieces with an undeniable curiosity. Seeing them so haphazardly thrown together makes them seem a little less intimidating, the similarly colored ones all blending into a single puddle of wooden pieces. He digs his fingers into the mass of creamy gold maple ones first, fishing for the piece that Sylvain had been meticulously adjusting just minutes before. When the tip of his finger catches on the delicately carved cross, he picks it up by the very top of it, setting it onto the board with a soft click. 

"It's just like you to pick the most important one first," Sylvain teases, lifting up the piece with a playful wink. "This one's the king." He places it down in one of the centermost squares, fingers brushing gently along the base of it to make sure the piece is perfectly centered within its little box. "He's pretty useless in terms of moving around, but the whole point of the game is to protect him from the other player's pieces. You can kinda think of the rest of these guys as his army."

Felix watches the way Sylvain likes to linger around every piece he places as he continues to explain them, fingers tracing along the curve of each one's base with an unmistakable fondness. He explains movements and purposes like something out of a less formal textbook, quickly becoming a little too much for Felix to memorize all at once. The playful addendum that the older boy likes to add to the end of each explanation helps to ease Felix's mind, though, drawing his gaze up just for the half second it takes to see Sylvain smile. He likens the king to a demure Dimitri and the powerful queen to Glenn, drags in Ingrid as a rook hard set on her straightforward ways, and saves the pair of knights for last, the matching horses reserved for the two of them and their childish dreams of swordplay and battle. 

He could listen to Sylvain explain the pieces for hours, playful snickers and half-sensical comparisons peppered between his every sentence, but as soon as the board is filled, the older boy is adamant about starting.

"I'll remind you about the rules as we play," he reassures Felix, the grin on his face impossible to deny. Sylvain lines up their rows of pawns last, centering every last one of them with utmost care. "Since you're the white player, you get to go first!"

It's entirely too much pressure, if Felix is asked. Sylvain, to his credit, seems to notice right away, and leans across the board with a soothing smile.

"Just...move a pawn first," he advises him, gesturing to the row of short wooden figures. "The middle of the board is one of the most important places, so try to control it without crowding it up too much."

Felix, only marginally less unsure that before, decides to take his friend's advice, advancing one of the pawns just to the right of his king. 

"Like this?"

Hazel eyes watch the movement curiously, eyes flashing with the glint of an idea as he bites back a smile. His eyes remain trained on his own pieces only briefly, flickering back up to find Felix's as soon as he finishes his deliberation. 

"That's good!" he tells the younger boy, reaching forward to rest a finger atop one of his own pawns, the one right in front of his king. "If it's the first time you move a pawn, you can also bring it forward two spaces instead of one," Sylvain supplies, advancing his pawn just so. Felix nods thoughtfully as he watches, trying his best to store the information away. He's only retained so much out of their lesson thus far, but it's nice to be able to share in something once limited to only Sylvain and his brother. 

Felix feels a bit more confident after having completed his first move, so he moves on to the next with a slight smile, grabbing the next pawn over from his first and gleefully pushing it two spaces forward. It almost begins to make perfect sense why Sylvain is so enamored by the game, Felix thinks, swinging his feet slightly as he watches what could almost be the beginnings of a fantastical battle in his imagination. When he glances up at Sylvain, there's the return of that sparkle in his eyes again, an idea certainly starting to unfold within his mind. As their eyes meet, the grin Sylvain shoots him is all teeth.

"I almost feel bad," he starts to laugh, causing Felix's brow to furrow, "but you made it too easy!" Gracefully, Sylvian picks up his queen and slides it diagonally out through the window he had created his last turn, nestling her all the way against the opposite side of the board. Felix frowns at the positioning, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the other boy's laughter. Sylvain unhands his queen so quickly that she teeters slightly in place, tapping his fingers diagonally along a path that leads directly to...

"Checkmate!"

Felix feels precisely like Sylvain had just swept the entire board clean again—absolutely speechless.

Sylvain doubles over in his chair at Felix's slack jawed expression, fingers curled over the rim of the table to support himself. Copper eyes gawk at the board in absolute horror, shifting between the scene before him and a hysterical Sylvain, loud laughter echoing off the drawing room walls. As the horror starts to ebb away, Felix feels his eyes start to burn, fists shaking at his side as he feels anger bubble up in response to his friend's trick. His vision blurs at the edges with tears, but he has vision enough to grab the closest piece—a knight, perfectly enough—and hurl it at the back of Sylvain's head. 

"_OW! _"

The piece bounces off his head and clatters to the ground in a messy cacophony of sounds, and Sylvain sits up suddenly, one hand cradling the back of his head.

"Hey, that hu— wait. Are you... Are you _ crying_, Felix?" 

Stubbornly, Felix paws away at his eyes with clenched fists, glaring holes into the chess board.

"_No _."

At his blatant lie, Sylvain exhales a soft chuckle, standing up to circle around the table toward him. 

"I said _ no_, stupid Sylvain," the younger boy grouses, sniffling petulantly as he crosses his arms. Sylvain completely ignores his unspoken request to leave him alone, the bottom half of his impossibly wide grin visible in Felix's periphery as he infringes upon his personal space anyway, pulling the smaller boy tight against his chest.

"Aw, c'mon, Fe," he laughs, squeezing him even tighter as Felix starts to thrash against him, punching rebelliously against the other boy's chest. "I won't do it again, I promise!"

"I said I'm not crying, so let me gooo!" Felix demands, writhing violently in an attempt to shake Sylvain off. He attempts to stand up and push the boy away, only for them to end up in a pile of connected limbs on the floor, Sylvain still desperately trying to wrestle him into a messy, suffocating hug.

"You said it while sounding like a big, crying baby, so I don't believe you!" 

"_You're _ the big baby," Felix bites back, tugging harshly on Sylvain's bangs. "That was mean and I am _ never _ playing chess with you again!" Sylvain winces and pushes his hands away, grabbing for his legs to try and cut off the boy's escape. Felix kicks Sylvain off and tackles him. 

"You can't do that, you're supposed to be my best friend!" Sylvain cries, grunting in surprise as the force of his tackle sends them both rolling across the floor. When they come to a stop, Felix scrambles up, sitting harshly down on Sylvain's chest with his arms crossed. The force of it is enough to make Sylvain cough. He pokes Felix gently on the side, urging him to take pity and set him free.

Felix does not grant his plea, only pouting as he sniffs at Sylvain, gaze fixed somewhere on the other side of the room.

"Come _ on_," Sylvain whines. "Glenn did that to me when I first learned, too!"

At that, Felix spares a quick glance downward, copper eyes catching the pleading look hazel brown ones level him with. 

"...did he really?"

Sylvain puffs out a laugh again, a little more forced than usual. Felix shifts guiltily atop his chest.

"Yeah," he wheezes, "And I still play with him anyway! I even _ beat _ him most of the time!" Felix purses his lips, carefully contemplating his words. "Now can you," _ wheeze_, "please get off me, Felix? I can't breathe..."

Felix scrambles off of him, watching as the older boy sits up and rubs at his chest sorely. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of creamy yellow wood, leaning over to grab the forgotten knight. It's scuffed along the top, a small mark that mars the polished surface of the horse's mane, and Felix rubs at it guiltily. When Sylvain stops fretting over himself, Felix shoves the piece toward him, unceremoniously nestling it in his hands.

"Next time we play, you're not winning that easily," he promises, copper eyes averted and lips curled into a petulant frown. Felix doesn't need to look at him to know that Sylvain is grinning.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about chess and sylvix on twitter [@panntherism](www.twitter.com/panntherism) thanks


End file.
